Over-wintered onions. Harvest?

[pinkprincess]

Have just been doing a spot of weeding in the garden and I noticed some seed heads starting to appear on my onion stems. Is this normal and do I need to do anything?

[PAULW]

Pinch them out

[podfather]

have also noticed this on my elephant garlic tonight do i pinch these out

[zazen999]

yes, unless you want them to produce the flowers and thus seeds.

[bluemoon]

They do say to use up the ones that have bolted first as they won't store well. Can't confirm that as I always lose track and the whole lot end up in store together.

[zazen999]

I lose track as well, we are into our second week of using our autumn planted out onion sets........they won't make it into storage unless we need to harvest the lot and chop and freeze.

[rana]

If you take out the flower stem from the bottom you can use it chopped to garnish food. I fail to understand why they are not available in the shops here, in SE Asia you can buy bunches of onion flower spikes in any market.

[TonyF]

We eat chives flowers whenever they appear in the herb beds. And, to save yourself money, leave a couple of onions to go to seed heads - they're very attractive - and before they start to shoot the seeds everywhere, put a paper bag over the seeds head/s to catch them, that way you can save on seeds next year.

[bluemoon]

If you take out the flower stem from the bottom you can use it chopped to garnish food. I fail to understand why they are not available in the shops here, in SE Asia you can buy bunches of onion flower spikes in any market.

The type of garlic we grow (can never remember if it's hard-neck or soft neck, but it's called 'Arno') produces shepherds crook shaped spikes which can, apparently, be removed and used in cooking. I think they're called 'strigs' or something. I was told this was a popular thing abroad, but until the first time I saw ours do it and asked the resident garlic expert I'd never even heard of it. Garlic expert says they are good for flavouring oils. See, I hate garlic and the stuff goes rampant on me, I don't just get one crop I get two!

[Phreddy]

They are called scapes and I believe that they can be used to make seed. Not sure so have a look at daughterofthesoil.blog I think that she has the info.

[fran]

Over-wintered onions. Harvest? Flowers? Bolting?

Morning all!

Is anyone lifting their onions yet? A few of mine are forming flowers, which I have pinched out, but I think they could grow a little more. Perhaps they won't if they are trying to go to seed. Do grapes bend the stalks over or do they just lift and lay on the soil to dry out?

Any advice welcome. Thank you, Fran

[zazen999]

I have been harvesting mine for 2 weeks. I take the largest ones, or the ones with flower stems [which I have pinched out] and leave the others to keep growing.

[cwipnip]

i pulled all mine up last weekend as some had onion rot

[fran]

Great! Good news. I'm dying to try one. So you don't need to leave them to dry? Does this mean they don't get brown skins? Are you just pinching out the little flower bud or taking out the whole stem?

Also - do you think it's too late to plant summer sets? Don't know if there are any still left in shops. Have got some red onion seedlings ready to plant out. Onions just look so good when they are growing. It's like all my crops really. I can hardly bare to dig them up!

[zazen999]

Autumn sown sets don't get brown skins....just use them as soon as you think they are big enough....I have 150 in so they will last me 3-4 months until my spring sown sets and autumn sown seeds are mature.

If you have sets now, bung them in - they won't get as big but it's better than throwing them away.